If you have been following all the developments since Sunday’s race at Loudon, you have heard practically everyone in NASCAR Nation speculate about what was wrong with Clint Bowyer’s New Hampshire Sprint Cup car and why he received a penalty of such magnitude.
I don’t know that I would have handled it the same way as NASCAR did.
If it had been up to me, I would have held a press conference and I would have had “Show and Tell.” I would have had the car on display and invited anyone in the media that wanted to cover it to attend. I would have brought everyone over to the NASCAR Research and Development Center and explained what was wrong with this car and why the No. 33 team was being penalized.
Doing it that way would stop all the speculation. Trust me, right now there is a lot of speculation. The information we had been getting since the problem was discovered has been very vague. Look, I am a racer so when they say there is a problem with a mounting point, well I understand that. But if you are a new or casual fan, do you know what a mounting point is? A mounting point for what?
I have always felt that NASCAR could have improved on the way information flows to the media and the fans. To me it is no different than having a press secretary at the White House. It’s their job to explain and answer questions. I think NASCAR could really help itself as well as the fans if they would explain things more clearly.
When you do things that people don’t understand it naturally leads to more questions and speculation. It turns into a snowball effect and things get bigger and more out of control. That’s the way this Bowyer thing has gone.
Team owner Richard Childress said the cause of the car being off was because it was pushed by a wrecker after the checkered flag as Clint had run out of gas. Now, I saw a picture of the wrecker and it’s not one of those tiny tow truck jobs, it’s a big one. Am I saying that is what happened? No, because I have no idea. To be honest, I don’t know that I totally understand what is wrong with the car.
We’ve seen some funny looking things with these cars. We’ve seen them crabbing down the straightaway with the body all crooked on the chassis. However, I couldn’t visibly see anything wrong with the car watching it on TV. Obviously there wasn’t anything visibly wrong or they would have been forced to fix it at the track.
You’ve heard me say this many times before, but I have never been a big fan of taking a car after a race back to a laboratory to take it apart to see if you can find something wrong with it. The car has run 300 miles in a race for three hours getting beat on, banged, pushed, shoved, dropped off the jack, etc.
The inspection process today is at the highest level it has ever been. Listen, back in the day we maybe had five or six inspectors to take care of the whole field. Today there are inspectors everywhere at the track.
Now apparently the No. 33 was borderline at Richmond. You would assume that when they rolled into Loudon, it would have been the first thing they would have checked on Clint’s car. If you are going to give a guy a warning the week before, then it would seem logical that would be the first thing you would check on his car a week later and either they fixed it or they didn’t. As far as I know that is what happened because there wasn’t anything about this car being illegal until days after the race.
So, in my mind, the time has come for taking wins away. If the car is so far across the line as the No. 33 supposedly was, take the win away. This solves the problem. It doesn’t create more problems, it solves them. Show everyone where the problem was; disqualify the car, giving it last-place points and money. The win is then given to the second-place finisher of the race.
It’s just time to start doing this. You have to police the sport and enforce the rules. We just need a better process for explaining what was wrong. We need a better process for handling what was wrong. We need to get things like this resolved and don’t let them drag on.
Start taking the wins away. If the car is wrong, then the car is wrong no matter if it’s the body, the chassis or the motor. Take the win away. You don’t have to suspend anybody or put them on probation. Let folks come back to the track next weekend. If they do it again, then disqualify them again and they will only get last-place money and points.
I really believe you do that once, then you probably won’t have too many people trying to pull the wool over your eyes from there on out.
Oh by the way
NASCAR visited Walter Reed Hospital again this week. I have been on many of those visits and they truly are special. I know how much it means to the men and women in our Armed Forces when we come to give them our support and love. It truly is an amazing hospital. They do incredible things there to help our troops that have sacrificed so much to protect our freedom. It’s an incredible feeling to be there, to put a smile on someone’s face, give them a hug and to pray with them.
